Ronald and Richard Herrick facts for kids

Ronald Lee Herrick (15 June 1931 - 29 December 2010) was the world's first organ donor. On December 23, 1954, Herrick had one of his kidneys removed and transplanted into his identical twin brother, Richard J. Herrick (15 June 1931 - 14 March 1963). Richard was dying from chronic nephritis, a kidney disease. This made Richard the first successful recipient of a human organ transplant. The operation was performed by Dr. Joseph Murray at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Murray later won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his transplant work.

Richard lived for a further eight years, while Ronald worked as a teacher and farmer. Ronald died in 2010 after complications from heart surgery. Since the 1954 operation more than 450,000 kidney transplants have been done in the US.